Weekly Climate and Energy news Roundup

The Week That Was: 2014-04-12 (April 12, 2014) Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project

Quote of the Week: One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived. Niccolo Machiavelli [H/t Tim Ball] Number of the Week: $97,000 annual salary, entry level with undergraduate degree

NIPCC Briefings: From April 7 to April 10, representatives of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) conducted a series of briefings in Washington, DC, announcing the publication of the new work: Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts. The briefing team consisted of Craig Idso and Fred Singer, Lead Authors of Climate Change Reconsidered II, Joseph Bast of The Heartland Institute, publisher of the NIPCC reports, and Ken Haapala of SEPP. On occasion, they were supplemented by Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute who spoke on policy impacts, David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation who spoke on the bureaucratically contrived Social Cost of Carbon, and Patrick Michaels of CATO moderated the briefing given at CATO.

The general program began with an introduction by Joe Bast of the new volume and of the speakers. In addressing the science, Fred Singer focused on the graph by McNider & Christy that appeared in their editorial published in the February 19, 2014 Wall Street Journal. The graph, titled “Warming Predictions vs. the Real World” is simple and should be easily understood. The graph shows an average of 102 model runs with the start based on 1979 (the beginning of satellite temperature data) as compared with two sets of temperature data from satellites and four sets of temperature data from weather balloons. The greenhouse effect takes place in the atmosphere and this is where it should be most readily observed and measured.

The satellite and balloons observations agree. The models do not. The models greatly overestimate the warming trend. The disparity between observations and models is increasing each year. The atmospheric temperature data shows no warming trend for at least a decade, the surface data show no warming trend for at least 15 years. Models show consistent warming.

Conclusion: Government limiting emissions of essential carbon dioxide (CO2) is a “policy in search of a problem.”

Ken Haapala followed by showing that the failure of IPCC science is not due to the failure of governments to fund global warming/climate change research. Based on three US government reports, with their categories, the US government expenditures on climate change exceed $165 Billion, since Fiscal Year (FY) 1993. Expenditures on what the reports identify as climate science exceeds $35 Billion since FY 1993.

A graph prepared by Nir Shaviv shows there has been no advance in the official scientific understanding of the impact on temperatures from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 since the Charney report to the National Academy of Sciences in in 1979. Except for a slight bump in the lower range in the IPCC AR4 (2007), since changed back, the estimates remain the same: 1.5ºC to 4.5ºC, about 3 to 8ºF. Studies ignored by the IPCC indicate that any increase in temperatures may be far less.

Clearly, there is something wrong with the assertion (hypothesis) that CO2 has a significant impact on temperatures or the procedures (methodology) used by the IPCC, or both. [It is probably both. The IPCC mandate is to understand the human influence on climate and it has attempted to do so without first understanding the natural influences on climate. The mandate coupled with the failure to conduct proper hypothesis testing has consistently led to overestimates of the human influence. The IPCC is in a bureaucratic trap (gilded cage) of its own making and it cannot effectively back-down and admit it has been wrong.]

Also, Haapala pointed out that in FY 2013 about 85% of the US expenditures on climate change go to agencies and programs that pretend they can stop climate change, which has been ongoing for hundreds of millions of years.

Fittingly, Craig Idso presented the star of the show – the 1,000 plus page report citing thousands of scientific studies showing that increasing atmospheric CO2 is a tremendous benefit to plants, the environment, and humanity. This tome stands up to the bureaucratic science of the IPCC and the contrived notion that invisible CO2 causes harm. Much of the research of possible harms relies on models that use the upper end of possible values of warming from a doubling of CO2, the use of which cannot be justified given the clear failing of these models.

The book has seven chapters and Idso hit the highlights of each. Chapter 1 discusses the impact of CO2 on plants and soils. It cites over 200 years of research demonstrating that both plant productivity and growth increase with increasing CO2 concentrations in the air. A reporter for the Guardian (UK) thought she had a “got you” moment when she pointed out that in the summary of the chapter there is only one reference to 21st century work. The actual chapter in the main report contains many pages of citations including a significant number published in the 21st century. What the reporter did was emphasize that the IPCC, and others, ignore centuries of work on the benefits of CO2.

Chapter 2 goes into detail on studies of the impact of CO2 on plant characteristics. The principle study methods are to grow plants in CO2-enriched air and, in the case of long-lived trees, study how trees have responded to increasing atmospheric CO2. The key information sought are the rates of photosynthesis, biomass production, and the efficiency of water use. The research finds that the effects are overwhelmingly positive.

Chapter 3 addresses a significant body of research that the IPCC overlooks in its claim that warming will introduce new sources of stress on the biological world, such as forest fires, droughts, and extreme heat events, etc. There is a significant body of research that indicates the opposite. Enhanced CO2 will make the plants more resilient to stresses such as drought, diseases, insect damage, heavy metals, herbivores, soil salinity, etc.

Chapter 4 examines the likely future impact on plants. It demonstrates how atmospheric CO2 enrichment has expanded food production and biosphere productivity since the start of the industrial revolution. Further, it reports how CO2 enrichment helps plants resist temperature-induced extinction – in direct contrast to IPCC claims that rising temperatures (whatever the cause) will cause a decline in biosphere productivity. The IPCC claims are refuted by the empirical data showing increasing productivity of the biosphere. Except for Antarctica, the vigor of the Earth’s terrestrial biosphere has been increasing with time, since industrial revolution, and this increasing vigor extends over the entire globe.

Chapter 5 addresses the impact on terrestrial animals and the false claims by the IPCC of species extinction due to global warming. It points out that the models used are deeply flawed by artificially constrained climate envelopes and assumptions of immobility of species. These incorrect assumptions are routinely contradicted by observations.

Chapter 6 addresses the false notion, so heavily promoted, that the oceans will acidify with increasing CO2 concentrations and that they will warm to the point of diminishing or destroying aquatic life. The material in chapter 6 directly contradicts these notions and cites hundreds of peer-reviewed research analyses that suggest a much better future in a warmer, CO2 enriched aquatic world. A warming will increase ocean productivity. Species will adapt, as they have for eons since the earth was warmer and atmospheric CO2 concentrations were greater. Note, this does not mean that the increased CO2 caused the warmer world.

Chapter 7 finds that overall, a warmer world with increased atmospheric CO2, will be a great benefit to humanity. Cold related deaths are greater than heat related deaths. Further, numerous studies show that after an increase in heat related deaths, the death rates fall, indicating that the deaths would have occurred, but a short time later. The increases if food productivity immensity benefit humanity.

Climate Change Reconsidered II; Biological Impacts describes thousands of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that do not support, and often flatly contradict, IPCC’s pessimistic narrative of ‘death, injury, and disrupted livelihoods.’ How CO2 enrichment has effected global food supply is fact, not opinion. The work of the IPCC cannot be considered unbiased science. The public should demand to know why the IPCC is silent or hides the benefits of increased CO2.

Joe Bast then concluded the briefings with three take-home points: 1) the IPCC science is failing, the models fail; 2) the failure is not from a lack of government spending; and 3) the environment and humanity benefit from increasing atmospheric CO2, and any slight warming it may cause.

Last week’s TWTW discussed three major findings in the IPCC report released on March 31, which were: 1) global warming/climate change will cause disruption of agriculture and the threat of famine; 2) increased atmospheric carbon dioxide will cause ocean acidification (actually a reduction in alkalinity), threatening the oceans as a source of food; and 3) global warming will cause increases over historic sea level rise, threatening those who live on coastal areas. Based on the NIPCC report discussed above, none of these represent a major threat, and do not require a reduction in use of fossil fuels.

IPCC: The IPCC report of Working Group III on the mitigation of climate change is due to be released on April 13. Some leaks indicate that it will contain severe recommendations on limiting CO2 emissions. If so, it will be more evidence that the IPCC is a political body, not a scientific one. The IPCC has failed to produce the scientific evidence that human CO2 emissions are causing significant global warming/climate change. Climate models, which have not been validated, and are failing, are not scientific evidence. See Article # 1, links under Defending the Orthodoxy, and Problems in the Orthodoxy.

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Is the Sun Rising? Svensmark’s hypothesis that minor variations of sun have a significant influence on the earth’s climate is supported by an additional paper, just published. The hypothesis is that high-energy cosmic rays promote the formation of clouds, cooling the earth. An active sun reduces the number of high-energy rays reaching the atmosphere, with the result being a warming of the earth. A dormant sun allows for more rays, cooling the earth. The hypothesis is ignored by the IPCC in its summary of the influences on the earth’s climate. On his web site, Anthony Watts has a simplified flow chart explaining the process. See links under Science: Is the Sun Rising?

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Propaganda: Called father of modern advertising, Edward Benays learned his craft during World War I at the US Committee on Public Information (CPI). The CPI advertised and sold the war to the American people claiming it would “Make the World Safe for Democracy.” In the first paragraph of his book, Propaganda (1928) Benays wrote: The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democracy. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

Andrew Montford (Bishop Hill) and John Shade examined the education system in the UK and the Global Warming Policy Foundation published the findings under the title Climate Control: Brainwashing in schools. Montford and Shade wrote: Gone are the days when the education system hoped to generate young people equipped to form their own opinions on complex scientific sociological and political issues. Instead the education system, subverted by a green political movements, now seeks conformity with environmental orthodoxy, with any challenge to its vivid certainties viewed as transgressions to be ignored or treated with contempt.

According to Montford and Shade, knowledge is being replaced by propaganda. The Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, reacted quickly, but it remains to be seen if his reaction will be of substance or only for show.

On another side, Judith Curry posted her views on her latest “debate” with alarmist Kevin Trenberth of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The occasion was a Conference for World Affairs in Boulder, Colorado. During the question and answer period, the normally restrained Curry commented she regarded presentations like Trenberth’s to be propaganda.

Though it may be distasteful, the term, propaganda, can apply to a great body of the work presented by the IPCC, particularly that resulting from the use of computer models that have not been verified and validated, such as forecasts of dire futures for plants, the environment, and humanity from increasing atmospheric CO2. See links under Communicating Better to the Public – Use Propaganda on Children and Seeking a Common Ground.

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Lewandowsky: The fallout on the withdrawal by the journal Frontiers of a discredited paper by Lewandowsky et al. continues to raise controversy. Andrew Montford had particularly devilish comments: Ugo Bardi, an Italian chemist who seems to have something to do with the Club of Rome, has resigned from the editorial team at Frontiers in disgust, penning a long protest article here… And, as if to put the seal on the conclusion that the paper was bunk, support for Bardi’s decision comes from Peter Gleick, a man with long and deep experience in the area of ethical compromise. Gleick pretended to be a director of The Heartland Institute in order to obtain sensitive information under false pretenses. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.

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Energy Security: Russian President Vladimir Putin is forcing Europe to focus on energy security rather than green energy. Security does not come from unreliable sources of electricity that must be backed up by natural gas imports from Russia. See links under Energy Issues – Non-US

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Anti-science? The US House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans who are called anti-science, passed a bill requiring that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its National Weather Service (NWS) focus on forecasting weather rather than forecasting climate. Weather is killing people. NOAA/NWS missed Sandy while WeatherBell Analytics caught it nine days in advance. Cliff Mass, who is not a global warming skeptic, explains what happened with NOAA/NWS. See link under Models v. Observations.

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Oh Mann! A Penn State article states that Mr. Mann and his colleagues have found that the current no warming trend is being caused by the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). Mr. Mann’s work is being financed National Science Foundation. No doubt, Mr. Mann gets far more funding from the government than WeatherBell Analytics whose principals have been discussing the AMO for years. Mr. Mann also finds the current no warming trend is fleeting. We shall see. See link under Oh Mann!

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Number of the Week: $97,000. Based on survey data compiled by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the top-paying undergraduate major in 2013 was petroleum engineering, with an average starting salary of $97,000. See Article # 2

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ARTICLES:

For the numbered articles below, please see this week’s TWTW at: http://www.sepp.org. The articles are at the end of the pdf.

[SEPP Comment: These experts have not produced a climate model that works. The models greatly overestimate the impact of carbon dioxide on temperatures. Yet they claim that the future impact of carbon dioxide on climate is being underestimated.]

“For the first time we’ve been able to develop a technology to get CO2 and hydrogen from seawater simultaneously, that’s a big breakthrough,” she said, adding that the fuel “doesn’t look or smell very different.”

[SEPP Comment: No explanation on how it works and what is involved. The costs estimates are questionable.]

[SEPP Comment: Contrary to the propaganda, the purpose of the Victory Bonds was not to finance the war, but to prevent inflation by reducing the disposable income of the general population. Will these bonds prevent prosperity?]

[SEPP Comment: More sea turtles dead last year from the BP Blowout than during the full year immediately after the blowout? What nonsense! The BP blowout relates to the Keystone pipeline? The National Wildlife Federation as claiming this is based on science? The green industry will say anything to try to stop the Keystone pipeline.]

23 thoughts on “Weekly Climate and Energy news Roundup”

{WARNING: THIS IS A VERY GIRLIE POST —
IF “hate-that-stuff” = TRUE
THEN go to NEXTPOST.}

IT’S BEEN ONE YEAR SINCE I FIRST POSTED ON WUWT!

FROM my first two “greeters,” John Hultquist with his encouragement to continue to post (you regretted that, didn’t you, lol) and his quoting John Milton’s “They also serve who only stand and wait” and U.K. (US) with his gracious compliment

TO Stan Stendera and his: “I don’t care if you are fat and ugly… “ {I’ll treasure that always}

TO my hero-defender Mario Lento (and Gunga Din and several other parakletoi)

and ALL you wonderful mod-er-ators and SUPER-SCIENTISTS and An-tho-ny!

P.P.S. For any readers whose first language is not English and are wondering about “fluenty” and “pull as all” and some other odd spellings… (eye roll), I’m pretty sure whoever put that video together speaks another language better than she or he speaks English, lol.

A refreshing post Janice, but we have to remember money talks louder than love. And this climate change madness started years before Al Gore et al. It was dubbed as increase in Greenhouse gases to start with then snowballed. Now the IPCC is saying things like we are concerned with ethics and economics. I say ‘what’s that got to do with the price of eggs’. Australia is in the firing line, no climate change to be discussed at the G8 meetings. Good on Tony Abbott.

“In a March 7th letter to House Science, Space and Technology Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), McCarthy admitted that EPA cannot produce all of the original data from the 1993 Harvard Six Cities Study (HSC) and the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) 1995 Cancer Prevention Study II, which is currently housed at New York University.”

Really, can’t they, Gee really temp? How many universities lose important data. They had computers then, and at our university we keep all records, and thesises in our archives. Including those done by ex students and staff prior to computers.

@ George E. Smith — try going to Ric Werme’s WUWT tips page and scroll to very bottom for his contact info. and send Mr. Werme an e mail and ask — HE will know if anyone does. Otherwise, ask McAfee if you can adjust your settings (they are likely keying off of the advertising on WUWT — videos and photos are where malware lurks…).

Another Machiavelli quote that I think sums up the CAGW scam perfectly is, “For the vast majority of mankind accept appearances as though they were reality, and are influenced more by those things that seem, than by those things that are.”

In the U.S., a “graduate degree” commonly refers to anything above a bachelors degree (B.A. or B.S.). Thus, “undergraduate degree” commonly (yes, it sounds weird, I realize, lol) means a B.A. or a B.S..

My thoughts on investing in anything since the embrace of the three “d’s” by both parties – deregulation, desupervision, and de facto decriminalization trashed a regulatory system set up in the 1930’s that was the envy of the world. It helped bring us prosperity, far greater economic stability, fewer and less severe recessions, and reduced income inequality. Elite fraud and corruption are now common in America.

Janice, you would be interested in this and maybe others, A book was written a few years ago, that I was asked to review. ‘God and Creation – an engineering perspective’ written by Kevin Herd (2008) He was in my opinion one of these Holy bible believers, a loner and quite odd and had been a pastor of some illusive church, yet he had some very interesting observations. I can’t replicate his scientific graphs and mathematical formulae. (They outmatch Willis’) Basically he believed the big bang happened and intelligence and spiritually were formed during this. It is a natural scientific essence for the formation of living organisms, (especially humans) that is within all of us to some degree.
Light is God, and God is love. He was not a creationist, nor believed in human recreations of what God looks like, (Simply I believe there are two major forces in this universe, that influence life forms one is creative and the other destructive) Talk about the God particle, he wrote about it first from a religious point of view. It got good reviews, and the way he presented his prose, seemed to get to me positively.

Ed, most of this planet’s population wouldn’t be able to pin point where the Ukraine is on the global maps. Half of Americans don’t know where Australia is, they mix it up with Austria. I can’t understand this, possibly because where ever the Brits went and colonized, they took names of places with them, like New England, Perth, Scone (all Scottish) Oxford and Cambridge. I did know most of the A & H bombs are stored in the Ukraine at one time.

re: [SEPP Comment: Contrary to the propaganda, the purpose of the Victory Bonds was not to finance the war, but to prevent inflation by reducing the disposable income of the general population. Will these bonds prevent prosperity?]

it has been my opinion for a few years now that the entire CAGW scam was designed to grab the considerable assets of the baby boomer generation; in other words, to reduce the disposable income of the population. whether this includes a real or phony desire to prevent inflation, or is simply the greed of the parties involved in the scam, i don’t know. pension funds, institutional investors are not to be trusted. those who have funds which could find themselves sucked into the various scams associated with CAGW would be wise to inform their fund managers, in no uncertain terms, that their monies are not to be used for such purposes.

meanwhile, i hope CAGW sceptics will continue the fight on the scientific front & against the financialising of CO2 emissions & State subsidies now that the IPCC has endorsed fracking & nuclear as CAGW “remedies”:

10 April: Reuters: Nuclear industry says weak carbon price justifies state funding
FORATOM, which represents Europe’s nuclear industry, said new atomic power generation will need financial support as long as carbon prices are low and hit back at EU regulators’ criticism of funding for a plant to be built by EDF…
“The market must therefore provide, in the interim, the necessary support mechanisms to incentivise nuclear investments at an acceptable level of risk for investors,” FORATOM said…http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL6N0N24KU20140410

re PROPAGANDA: the CAGW crowd hate fracking/nuclear (so do i, but that is beside the point – tho i do not object to individuals choosing to
invest their money in either industry) so where are the NGOs screaming & yelling about IPCC for endorsing both?

Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF & more have been given space in the MSM to comment on the IPCC report & haven’t even mentioned the fact. listening to BBC & ABC & Fairfax radio in Australia, it is obvious the MSM enablers intend keeping this news from the public, for fear of losing the last hold-out CAGW supporters. a couple of examples:

ABC flagship morning program: Presenter Fran Kelly speaks of increase of 4-5 degrees by end of the century. She mentions nuclear in passing at one point, but makes sure the actual question she asks is about bioenergy, so that the only Guest, Bill Hare, doesn’t have to comment on nuclear at all. Fracking is never mentioned:

Undergraduate hasn’t graduated yet. Unless he has been given a grant to produce a honors thesis……”””””

So if he hasn’t graduated yet; how come he has a degree ?? An Undergraduate degree of course ??

You have to have a grant, to produce an honors thesis; whatever an honors thesis is ??

So they start them swilling at the public trough, even before they graduate ??

Last night a person who lives in my house, who is a kiddiegarden teacher, was listening to some assigned homework on her Mac.

The mac instructor teacher, was describing how she lets her students either work out stuff for themselves, or else cheat off somebody else’s notes. She of course walks around the class, to watch them all do one or the other.

I’m wondering, just what this teacher is being paid for, if her students are teaching each other; or at least the smart ones are teaching the stupid ones.

I didn’t ask my school teacher if she lets her kids cheat off each other .

No wonder US students can’t perform like others, they don’t have to wait till university to find out the Professors don’t teach anybody; they start to not teach anybody right in kiddiegarden.